Why Faith Needs Doubt

Those Biblical figures called heroes, and pillars, and faithful, and
righteous: they doubted. They struggled. Faith did not preclude that;
those titles that they earned could they have earned them without
doubting? Would Abraham have been Abraham had he not negotiated for
Sodom and Gomorrah? Moses, lost in the desert, doubted and struck the
rock in his own name when bringing forth water.

There is an argument to be made that the struggle with doubt is
among the most important aspects of faith... We oughtn’t confuse faith with mere belief the one is a
component, an aspect of the other, though integral to it.

One reason why this sort of recognition is so important is that without it, the state of doubt can seem to be such a lonely
 and, hence, sinful and shameful and unutterable  state to be in;
with this recognition in place, however, doubt can be the sort of thing
that we can bear and live through and  to use JL’s helpful phrase 
struggle with together. To be clear: the point here is not
that doubt is something to be celebrated or even simply taken for
granted; the struggle is necessary, lest a doubting faith should give
way to an outright unbelief. But the recognition that Moses and Abraham
 and, for that matter, Mother Teresa and Pope Benedict
and so on  are sharers in this struggle can, while perhaps not making
the burden any lighter in itself, still make it that much easier to
open oneself to the support of those others who, though faithful, are
themselves quietly familiar with what the struggle with doubt entails.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.